iPhotoMeasure: Ditch the Tape Measure, Grab a Digicam

When the team here at PC Magazine first got wind of iPhotoMeasure, software that promises to let you take accurate measurements of objects in digital photos, a flurry of e-mails flew back and forth about how it might work...

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

When the team here at PC Magazine first got wind of iPhotoMeasure, software that promises to let you take accurate measurements of objects in digital photos, a flurry of e-mails flew back and forth about how it might work and how accurate it might be. So to satisfy our curiosity (and yours), I tested the software out, and found that it performs pretty well. There are some limitations, though a much expanded new version of the software due out in a month or so looks to make the software much more robust.

For anyone doing a decent amount of remodeling or redecorating, and especially for larger-scale construction and contracting work, iPhotoMeasure could save a lot of time and effort. Forget having to climb a ladder to measure a window, or having to move that ladder all over your house to calculate how much paint you need to buy. With iPhotoMeasure, you can just snap a few pics from your digicam and let the software do most of the work for you, whether you've got a PC or a Mac.

First off, you'll have to stick up a DigiTarget (a black-and-white square of predetermined size) somewhere in the frame of where you're going to take the photo, on the same plane (like a wall) where you're going to be measuring. Once that's up, just take your snap, load the image in iPhotoMeasure, and commence measuring.

The Flash-based software looks simple but good. And since all the tools are laid out on the screen instead of buried in menus, iPhotoMeasure couldn't be much easier to use. Click the camera icon to load a photo, then accurately select the DigiTarget in the photo, as that's what the software uses to establish measurements. Zoom in with the familiar magnifying-glass icon on your Digitarget, select the crosshair icon, and click and drag as precisely as possible over the black outer square of the Digitarget. This step is important, because the more accurate you are here, the more accurate your measurements will be. But once that's done, measuring anything on the same 2D plane as the target is as simple as clicking and dragging lines over areas you want to measure. Once you've dropped in a line, say over the length of a wall or window, it'll instantly tell you how long it is, in your choice of Metric or English. My tests indoors and out proved accurate down to less than an inch, which is fairly impressive.

You have to keep a lookout for image distortion though, because if something in the photo looks bent or tilted in a way in isn't in reality, then your measurements are going to be off. The trick is to stand as center-on to what you want to measure as possible, and move forward or back to get the best image.

Other features include the ability to make your measurement lines one of eight different colors, to represent different materials or projects, and add on-screen data tags to the image, for things like project and customer name and contact information, budget, and general comments. Somewhat annoyingly, the program saves your measurements in a separate PRJ file that opens in the software, along with the image. It would be nice to be able to export the whole thing as a standard JPEG, to share with people that don't have the hundred-dollar software, but simple workarounds include taking a screencap or printing to a PDF. Thankfully, the next version of the software will include the ability to export the data as to JPEG and even Excel. Of course, you can also print the photo the traditional way and take it with you to the hardware store.

iPhotoMeasure is a neat bit of software that's useful to anyone doing more than a little interior design or home repair, and should be a necessity for most contractors, particularly if they're working on projects in more than one location. There's no need to send someone out to measure when you can just have the client take a digital picture with their camera or even cameraphone for close shots, so long as it's at least one megapixel. As the company's Web site points out, this software could also be useful in investigations, law enforcement, property damage evaluation, and forensics work.

Most of the improvements I would ask for are coming in the supposedly immanent release of Version 3.0 of the software, including the ability to click and drag shapes as well as lines, to more easily calculate area, and improved printing and exporting abilities. You'll also be able to do without the DigiTarget in the new version, though you'll still have to have known measurements for something in your photo. Other promised new features include the ability to measure multiple 2D planes and even measure planes at an angle. If you're already sold, there's no need to wait for 3.0: I've been told that customers who purchase and register the current version will receive a free 3.0 upgrade when it launches. The iPhotoMeasure 2.1 (XP or OSX) software is available now for a $100 direct download , and will soon be offered as a $120 boxed version, complete with preprinted DigiTargets in two sizes, for measurements large and small. Expect 3.0 in a month or so.